Senior executives from Microsoft's Xbox division have commented on Sony's plans for the PlayStation Portable, with Peter Moore dismissing the console's launch as being similar to a company trying to challenge the Windows operating system. Nintendo's dominance of the handheld market makes Sony's launch "like developing your own little operating system and saying, 'Well, I'm going to challenge Windows'," Moore told questioners at a Halo 2 Backstage Pass event in Seattle late last week, according to a report in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Chief Xbox officer Robbie Bach was less dismissive of the system, but he argued that the launch was largely irrelevant to the Xbox business. "I think, in general, it's different than our [console] business," he told the audience. "We've yet to see anybody make a meaningful connection between having a console and having a handheld," he continued, although he did acknowledge that Nintendo had attempted to do so with the GameCube and GBA link-up.